The SitePoint Forums have moved.

You can now find them here.
This forum is now closed to new posts, but you can browse existing content.
You can find out more information about the move and how to open a new account (if necessary) here.
If you get stuck you can get support by emailing forums@sitepoint.com

If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

It may be true that only a small percentage of users use Netscape 4.x, but at the University I go to all the computers on the campus use Netscape 4.x as their default browser, and if you open up IE it's version 4.0

Originally posted by Chuckie It may be true that only a small percentage of users use Netscape 4.x, but at the University I go to all the computers on the campus use Netscape 4.x as their default browser, and if you open up IE it's version 4.0

Chuck

True. Just because its only 2 percent..depending on how many visitors you get that could be quite a chunk of people.

On one site I have stats saying 1.01% and on another 6%. Same stats and time period. On yet another it says 11% and there are even a few Netscape 3's accessing that site. The first site is geared toward people in their 20's more than anyone else. The second gets a much more middle aged crowd and the third is an underfunded non-profit organization. It also has much less traffic than the others, so each percentage point is representing fewer visitors.

I also refuse to code for Netscape..but 2.76% of my site is around 20-40 visitors, so ah well

And I know some people say a potential client visiting your site could be using NS, and when they don't like the result in NS you lost your potential client..in my opinion that's nonsense, a client should be well aware of the browserwars and everyone knowns IE is winning.

I haven't heard that they're using Netscape, but when and if they ever do it would stand stats right on their head, I imagine.

I have to agree, clients aren't well aware of browser differences. Sometimes they're not even aware of different browsers. Or exactly what a browser is for that matter. Lots and lots of people just think that the blue e is "the internet". They're not into distinctions.

On the site that JMulder showed us, are the problems in Netscape caused by Netscape not adhering to standards, or the site being coded for non-standard stuff that IE supports? I know that I should know that but I don't.

Netscape seems to have problems with the JAVAscript on my site, so it's Netscape's problem..

I agree clients are not aware of browsers, but as I said, they should be well aware. And if they complain about the incompatibility of your company's site with Netscape, then you can show them this thread and the stats

my stat's go the same way... I stopped coding for netscape when it got to 5% usage. The company I work for now won't even code for netscape unless it's explicitly requested. Which has never occured.

When aol come to the end of their contract with IE i recon they better have a good think about whether or not it'd be a good idea to use netscape. A hell of a lot of sites won't work properly and that could leave customers thinking about a change.

Also last I heard netscape was going to be used as an intranet browser or something, it was a while ago when I read that but I haven't heard anything since...

Stats from everywhere on the Net will vary, bit they're all pretty much the same. In my opinion, this is not what you're after.

You should think in terms of W3C Web standards. Netscape 4 is not a browser that supports the standards well and as such contributes to making the Web a Balkanized mess of non–valid markup, unstructured documents yoked to outdated presentational hacks, and incompatible code fragments that leave many millions of Web users frustrated and disenfranchised.

Not to mention us, developpers.

I firmly believe you should design for newer, standards-compatible browsers and drop netscape 4 altogether.

But you do it elegantly. Here's how. Drop this little code in your page (or an external js file). Every user that comes to your site using a non-standard-compliant browser will be redirected to a page you will have designed where they can download the appropriate version of their browser (Netscape 6.2 for instance).

That way, you'll be able to enjoy more lattitude in your designing experience, knowing you really are coding according to standards and you will be assured that whatever you do, your site will be viewable not only in desktop browsers, but also on PDAs, cellphones, etc. But I'm getting carried away now... The application of Web standards is another issue

Do you really want to sacrifice such cool, standardized, supported thingies because a retarded browser can't support them... So you're dropping a small percentage of users. But you're also pleasing a far greater one. And besides, you're not really dropping them. You're giving them a choice. The choice to either stay behind or leap forward.

If your serious about web design, you best consider netscape 4x at the very least.

For starters, 1% of 1 million visitors is quite a different number thatn 1% of 1000 visitors. You would be wise to consider the numbers rather than the percent.

Secondly, consider that you only get 200 visits a day, and you have a pretty good converstion rate of say 15-20 sales a day. Your form for check out uses javascript for a date function. Users useing netscape 4x and below can't use the form because the the doesn't seem to work. It errors every time. 2 or 3 of those sales could have been lost because of this. Yes, it's extreme, but it happens. I know because it happened to a client of mine last week. He's not willing to loose 2% of his sales.

If you run a personal site (I say any site that isn't a business is personal) don't sweat it. I don't. I try to make sure my site is at least "viewable" in netscape, but thats where I draw the line. If it'll at least display, I'm happy. Most of my sites look the exact same in both browsers.

Be aware of your audience. If your doing a corp site, be sure you do code for netscape, at least till 2004 - that's the number I heard. I think that's a bit drastic and a very conservitive number.

Well, I believe in coding for compatibility. I want my code to work in Internet Explorer just as well as it works for Mozilla and Opera, which I think both are superior to IE. However, I make and exception for NS 4.7 – I internationally ignore it. Why? Ahem... Quite frankly because it’s a pile of stinking, rotting *****. It’s a horrible, buggy excuse for a browser. It bad in every way imaginable and the faster people stop using it, the better.

It's not hard coding a page that works in NS 4.7, but you cannot use good things like CSS, since the support is so buggy that it's ridiculous. If you use JS, you have to write a specific script for NS4, and usually use stupid little workarounds. It's a long and tedious process that IS NOT worth the small percentage of visitors. In one year, usage of 4.x browsers will have dropped below 1%, and then all the work will be useless.

Anyhoo, look at it in the way of "word of mouth" advertising: Say you have a web site about fishing. Some guy goes to your web site using NS 4.x. Nothing works right and he gets several scripting errors. It turns out this guy is part of a group of fishing enthusiasts that happens to number in the millions. He posts a message on the group's online forum that basically says your site sucks. He's sharing his experience; he has no idea what your site may look like in another browser; he only uses one, the one you don't support. The members of his group pass the word to other members, who pass it to their fishing buddies, etc. All of these people don't even bother to visit your site because Joe Fisherman's word is usually good, and if he says your site sucks, then it must suck. So now the word is that your site sucks. No one knows exactly why at this point, they just know.

See what I'm getting at? When you drop support for one browser you could potentially be losing a helluva lot of visits. I think backward compatibility is very important, to a point - and that point is, IMHO, when NS 4.x usage drops below 1% for six consecutive months. Right now I have no need to use JavaScript or CSS that can only be used in the latest browsers.